Skyrim: Kill Dragons in the Great Craggy North (Special Edition Now Available)

No, it released in the hour between your post and mine. I definitely double checked the SKSE post before posting. I then checked my Skyrim version, hence the edit. Although I probably should have future-proofed my screenshot by including the SKSE page showing .11 as the latest version, eh?

Like I said, they are quick.

Also, you apparently are subscribed to the beta releases, the latest non-beta is still 1.9.29.

Yeah, I just thought I'd ask.

I was forced to opt into the 1.9 beta by a mod. I upgraded a mod (SkyUI, I think) which would not work without the latest SKSE. Which in turn would not work with the latest non-beta Skyrim patch. Thus, I had to opt into the beta. I never turned it off.

Stability is better, or my luck is. I'd never had much luck with Skyrim before, with regards to crashes and questline-breaking bugs. I would start a quest line, finish it, and before I got far in the next one, something would break. This is my Dark Brotherhood character. A Dunmer whose story began when he was mugged and left for dead south of Rorikstead. After the Dark Brotherhood he moved onto Dawnguard, then the Companions and then the College of Winterhold. Those done, he started the Main Quest at level 52. I'm actually going for the Daedric and Side quests now -- I've got 7 of the former and 6 of the latter done.

Guys, I'm almost fully convinced that Bethesda planned a "Wipe Out the Thieves Guild" quest similar to, but perhaps more involved than the "Wipe Out the Dark Brotherhood" quest. Mjoll talks about doing it. The merchants talk about wanting somebody to do it. You can ask about corruption in the Jarl's palace. The only problem I can see is, Delvin is tied into the Dark Brotherhood quest. And Vex is needed for the Stones of Barenziah collection. I think both of them (or rather, their function) could have been duplicated.

Barring that, I'm actually going to do the Thieves Guild (yet again -- it's great) but I've taken a further step. Married Mjoll, and I'm going to move her to one of the Hearthfire houses, so her big nose is out of the Guild's business. I don't even care if that guy who rescued her from the Dwemer ruin goes to see her. The marriage was purely for the Guild. Although, Mjoll might be the best female fighter companion. She rushes into combat and eats friendly fire like they all do, but she doesn't whine all the time like Serana or sell herself out as a stealth agent and ruin your sneaking like Jenassa. She is repetitive but not that bad.

Legendary: Will reset a skill to 15 and refund all perk points invested in that skill. So if you had five skill points in one skill and you do the Legendary thing, you will then have 5 points to spend. If you "Legendary" a crafting skill, I advise crafting a whole bunch of stuff you would use.

If you have more than one skill to Legendary, you can double up on the refunds. For example, I am at 100 on both Alchemy and Smithing. I could "Legendary" Smithing first, sink all Smithing's perks into Alchemy, make a bunch of greater potions, then "Legendary" Alchemy and get those perk points back again. And you maintain all your Alchemy recipes (I have already done a "Legendary" reset on Alchemy) so if you want to grind it back up again, just make a bunch of Invisibility, Waterbreathing, Fortify Carry Weight, etc. potions, whatever produces the most value (since value drives experience in all crafting skills).

How are you killing dragons and *not* getting souls? The only dragons that do not provide skills are Alduin, and the one in the Soul Cairn from Dawnguard. Except I am not familiar with what is/isn't in Dragonborn as I do not own it. But every other dragon in Skyrim, when killed, gives a soul.

How are you killing dragons and *not* getting souls? The only dragons that do not provide skills are Alduin, and the one in the Soul Cairn from Dawnguard. Except I am not familiar with what is/isn't in Dragonborn as I do not own it. But every other dragon in Skyrim, when killed, gives a soul.

I'm pretty sure that if you get to a certain point in the main questline for Dragonborn, Miraak will be a dick and show up to steal all your dragon souls until you finish him off.

Is there some bug (feature?) that I should know about regarding enchanted weapons getting drained without being used? It seems like I notice it most in Dwemer ruins, that my enchanted weapons will suddenly have no more magic in them, even when I just filled them with soul gems.

Are there certain areas which drain enchantments by design? Or am I just destined to not have reliable enchanted weapons due to bugs?

How are you killing dragons and *not* getting souls? The only dragons that do not provide skills are Alduin, and the one in the Soul Cairn from Dawnguard. Except I am not familiar with what is/isn't in Dragonborn as I do not own it. But every other dragon in Skyrim, when killed, gives a soul.

I'm pretty sure that if you get to a certain point in the main questline for Dragonborn, Miraak will be a dick and show up to steal all your dragon souls until you finish him off.

I dunno. Started to wonder if it was a proximity thing (shurg) that proved not quite it when dealing a death blow to the backside of a Legendary dragon.

Got the last book, and the dragon that says "Mirrak says you have to die"...No soul.

I put the latest DLC on.. and started a new char... but o man, this game is huge but the drudgery of doing it all again to level up and do the new dlc.. not sure I want to go through it again so soon...

OK so I think I asked this in the old thread, but I'm not going to go digging through it now to find it...

Is there a mod that allows more than 2 spell slots? Preferably without requiring me to put away whatever I have currently in my hand(s)? I want to play more of a caster type once I decide to finally beat the main quest with my current "bash everything while screaming" orc, and I just can't stand the spell-as-weapon mechanic.

Is there a mod that allows more than 2 spell slots? Preferably without requiring me to put away whatever I have currently in my hand(s)? I want to play more of a caster type once I decide to finally beat the main quest with my current "bash everything while screaming" orc, and I just can't stand the spell-as-weapon mechanic.

This one? I haven't tried it myself, but I think I spend too much time in the favorites menu sometimes...

Something is not happy in my game. I keep getting random freezes of like 2-4 seconds. I'm thinking I should just shed all of my Workshop mods and download everything via the NMM.

The workshop has a few annoying drawbacks:

1. You can't uninstall, only unsubscribe2. It only checks through the launcher, which you'll never see if you use SKSE3. It takes forever to check every mod for an update

I moved everything over that I could.

1. Are you sure? An unsubscribed mod won't be removed when you run the launcher after unsubscribing?2. Frustrating but I guess Valve didn't want to have to explicitly code support for updating any game that supports Workshop into Steam.

1. Are you sure? An unsubscribed mod won't be removed when you run the launcher after unsubscribing?

Looked into it. Apparently if you go into the Data Files section and delete from there it'll delete everything associated. I thought it got rid of only the ESP, but it seems that the workshop only allows mods as packaged BSA's. Getting rid of two files with the same name is very easy, though the mod name and ESP name may not match.

1. Are you sure? An unsubscribed mod won't be removed when you run the launcher after unsubscribing?

Looked into it. Apparently if you go into the Data Files section and delete from there it'll delete everything associated. I thought it got rid of only the ESP, but it seems that the workshop only allows mods as packaged BSA's. Getting rid of two files with the same name is very easy, though the mod name and ESP name may not match.

Huh. My biggest issue with the workshop was sort of the opposite: if a mod I've subscribed gets discontinued/removed/whatever from the Workshop, it's *gone* - no warning, no notification, nothing - game fires up and informs you that it's loading your 4 mods "Weird, I thought I had 6...huh...HOLY JEEBUS, WHERE IS MY FAVORITE MARKSMAN MOD!?!?!?!?!?!"

Nope, it still updates without your input. Now one thing you can do is launch your game immediately before it tries to verify mods, and then it'll stop any updates. But if you let it go, it'll try to download all updates automatically.

Part high level 'toon, part dragon souls glitching out (again) or he's stealing them, but duringthe battle that's part of his schtick for healing.

Dunno WTF to think when one poster said there should be 7'ish dragons during the battle, butonly got 3...hummm. Plus he has to go thru his lines "or else he glitches".

(SIGH)

There are three dragons he consumes, at least that's how it was for me. The first time I played, I had to reload because he'll glitch if you knock out too much of his health. He won't be able to heal. I switched to a weaker weapon and whittled him down until he consumed the serpent dragon you fly in on, then I switched to my dual swords of kill all the things and chopped him in half.

How do you guys not have the release date memorized? It was kind of memorable how they showed it in the trailers (all of them). They all had the Skyrim logo rotate into the release date.

Kinda pissed. 15 Daedric quests done, no achievement. I took the Masque rather than the Axe in "A Daedra's Best Friend", so I'm good there. In "Ill Met By Moonlight" I took the Savior's Hide. In "The Black Star" I opted for the Black Star. I recall reading in the old thread that that would cheat you out of the achievement, but both Wikis assure me that it will not. The Wikis also say you don't need to hold all artifacts at once. That makes sense, since the book consumes itself when you use it. You don't get to keep a copy for your shelf. After the achievement never popped, even after I left the Blue Palace (Wabbajack was the last artifact I got), I used player.additem to get the Ring of Hircine. So even if the Black Star doesn't count, that makes 16 Daedric artifacts I have held at various points. I am credited with completing 15 Daedric quests in my stats.

I normally don't fret over achievements, but I want to get all of them in Skyrim. I figured the most annoying one would be the lockpick/pickpocket one. I may have picked over 500 locks, but 50 pickpockets? I don't like pickpocketing in any of these games.

So, what's next for me? Go to my homes and round up all the Daedric artifacts to get 15 in my inventory at once? player.additem to get Azura's Star? Or would I have to reload a previous save? If I do that, I'll also have to redo part of the book quest, the shield, the Wabbajack, and maybe one more. And I really hate "The Only Cure". Getting the ingredients would be annoying if I didn't already have them all (I do), but that Dwemer ruin seems designed to make you hate Dwemer ruins. There are two major areas, and you have to keep moving between them to get where you need to go. It just seems unusually long and convoluted. And the main guy you have to kill isn't even special. It's just a bunch of cultists. Neat how they have varied items and skills, but they all drop in one shot from either my Dragonbone bow or Zephyr and dragonbone arrows, including the main guy. I even one-shotted the Centurion before the main guy. So it was more annoying than anything.

In "The Black Star" I opted for the Black Star. I recall reading in the old thread that that would cheat you out of the achievement, but both Wikis assure me that it will not.

That's weird, because I could swear that the Wiki used to say that you must choose Azura's Star to get the achievement. This is what prevented me from getting the achievement in my last play-through, because I'd done that quest fairly early on and chosen the Black Star and it was far too late to turn back after I'd collected all the other artifacts.

It is my understanding that you need to choose Azura's Star to get the achievement, and I don't know why the Wikis don't say that any more.

On my current play through, I'm saving Azura's Star / The Black Star for last, and I'll make a save just before choosing one or the other. I'll be sure to test it by choosing the Black Star (again) and seeing if the achievement pops. If not (and I'm betting it won't), I'll revert and choose Azura's Star and see if the achievement pops.

Quote:

player.additem to get Azura's Star?

I can confirm from direct experience that this does not work.

[EDIT]Hrmmm... Poking around, it seems that other places are saying that the Black Star is okay to choose, too. If so, then the achievement must be buggy and easy to screw up, because I got every single one of the artifacts in my first play-through (choosing the Black Star) and no achievement.

Oh well, I'll still try the experiment of choosing between the Black Star and Azura's Star and see what happens when I get there this time around.

I want to assume good faith on the Wikia, and experience tells me I should on UESP, so I can only imagine they've had trusted users legitimately pop "Oblivion Walker" having chosen the Black Star.

Why doesn't player.additem work for the Star? The way I understand it, the achievement tracks the number of qualifying artifacts separate from the quests. The Rueful Axe, the Skeleton Key, and completing "Waking Nightmare" without killing the guy and taking the Skull of Corruption, all do not count. Simply owning the item does.

Could it be because a step was missed? I didn't have a follower to sacrifice to Boethiah, so I used setstage to advance. I still cleared out the dungeon and took the Ebony Mail off the guy. I don't think Ebony Mail wasn't counted, though I suppose that's a possibility.

So maybe I'll revert back to around the time of the Star quest and choose Azura's Star, but won't be able to do this until Tuesday. And then it will take time to re-collect the shield, the book, and the Wabbajack. I also did the first part of the Aetherium quest, since that's where I got the last Mer blood sample, from a Falmer.

In lighter news, Werewolf vs. Dragon is fun, but horribly one-sided. As a Werewolf (fully upgraded with all the offensive perks), I pretty much tore up an Ancient Dragon (two of them, actually). Got a nice picture of my victory and posted it on Google+ in the Skyrim community... not sure I can easily get it over here. Does this link work for you guys? It should, I shared it as Public. (And I don't care if it exposes my real name, that's no secret.)

Why doesn't player.additem work for the Star? The way I understand it, the achievement tracks the number of qualifying artifacts separate from the quests. The Rueful Axe, the Skeleton Key, and completing "Waking Nightmare" without killing the guy and taking the Skull of Corruption, all do not count. Simply owning the item does.

In most cases like that it's not the item itself, it's a script attached to the point where you get the item that fires off and increments a hidden variable. If the item is given during dialog then the script is a part of that dialog and if it's an item you simply pick up then it's a script that's attached to that specific physical item in the world. Otherwise the game would have to be running a permanent script just to constantly check whether or not you have any one of the possible items in order to update the hidden variable (which would be a performance concern). It would also be possible (trivial even) to cheat such a script by spawning 16 of the same item into your inventory.

That makes sense. Well, in that case, all 15 of the Daedric artifacts I initially acquired to qualify for the achievement were received through the normal means (i.e. by completing the quest). I did skip a step in "Boethiah's Calling", but I looted the Ebony Mail off Boethiah's previous champion and equipped it as requested, heard Boethiah's speech after doing so, etc. None of the other quests bugged or were bugged or otherwise accelerated by me.

I'm beginning to think it was the Star. I just hope I have an actual save very close to right before I chose to take it back to the mage in Winterhold.

Either Star is not that useful. It still only counts as one. If I had the Black Star and it could hold up to so many black souls (like a dozen, or more), I could take it into a dungeon and get all the souls. Ostensibly the idea is, black soul gems are expensive, so you use the Black Star in lieu of one to capture a black soul. Well, you then gotta take it to an Enchanting Table and enchant something with it before you can capture another black soul. So it is somewhat useful, I suppose, to the casual soul collector. But if you grab every soul gem you come across (e.g. with the auto harvest mod, haha), and you have a bunch of them, well, it's not as useful.

Either Star is not that useful. It still only counts as one. If I had the Black Star and it could hold up to so many black souls (like a dozen, or more), I could take it into a dungeon and get all the souls. Ostensibly the idea is, black soul gems are expensive, so you use the Black Star in lieu of one to capture a black soul. Well, you then gotta take it to an Enchanting Table and enchant something with it before you can capture another black soul. So it is somewhat useful, I suppose, to the casual soul collector. But if you grab every soul gem you come across (e.g. with the auto harvest mod, haha), and you have a bunch of them, well, it's not as useful.

The Black Star is decent as an enchanting item but it's really useful as an charge refilling item. Save your consumable soul gems for the enchanting table and use the Black Star to recharge and you'll never be more than one human soul trap away from a recharged enchanted weapon.

The Black Star is decent as an enchanting item but it's really useful as an charge refilling item. Save your consumable soul gems for the enchanting table and use the Black Star to recharge and you'll never be more than one human soul trap away from a recharged enchanted weapon.

That makes more sense.

Hat Monster wrote:

If you're on the PC, then it seems bringing up the console disables any achievements for the rest of that session. Applicable?

Nope. I've used the console right before getting an achievement (although never to actually get the achievement). I think Fallout: New Vegas was this way, though.

The Black Star is decent as an enchanting item but it's really useful as an charge refilling item. Save your consumable soul gems for the enchanting table and use the Black Star to recharge and you'll never be more than one human soul trap away from a recharged enchanted weapon.

Yep. Even the weakest wimpiest bandit in all of Skyrim (and there are plenty) is a Black soul which is the equivalent of a white Grand Soul. The animal equivalent is a mammoth, which you can find, but are way harder to bring down than a level one bandit.

There's zero reason outside of Role-Playing to use the regular version.

The Black Star is decent as an enchanting item but it's really useful as an charge refilling item. Save your consumable soul gems for the enchanting table and use the Black Star to recharge and you'll never be more than one human soul trap away from a recharged enchanted weapon.

That makes more sense.

Hat Monster wrote:

If you're on the PC, then it seems bringing up the console disables any achievements for the rest of that session. Applicable?

Nope. I've used the console right before getting an achievement (although never to actually get the achievement). I think Fallout: New Vegas was this way, though.

my understanding is, if you use the console to manipulate your stats/items/inventory/etc then it disables achievements (did that on steam for me).

Nope, I used to use the console to boost my carry weight. Still got achievements. For a while I used a mod that did it. Dropped the mod, now I'm back to player.modav carryweight 10000. Still got achievements. Most recently, I got Land Baron and Master Architect from Hearthfire. I have about 70% of the achievements and I don't believe I have played a game where console commands were not used.

Might need more testing on what, if anything, disables achievements, but my understanding is that there's a per-game switch that New Vegas uses but Skyrim does not. I do believe New Vegas will tell you that achievements are disabled. But I cannot say for sure, it's been a while.

Might need more testing on what, if anything, disables achievements, but my understanding is that there's a per-game switch that New Vegas uses but Skyrim does not. I do believe New Vegas will tell you that achievements are disabled. But I cannot say for sure, it's been a while.

New Vegas doesn't tell you, but it's not a permanent thing either. It's a per session disabling of achievements. So you use the console, save and quit and restart and you get the console's benefit without "risking" missing any cheevos.

Might need more testing on what, if anything, disables achievements, but my understanding is that there's a per-game switch that New Vegas uses but Skyrim does not. I do believe New Vegas will tell you that achievements are disabled. But I cannot say for sure, it's been a while.

New Vegas doesn't tell you, but it's not a permanent thing either. It's a per session disabling of achievements. So you use the console, save and quit and restart and you get the console's benefit without "risking" missing any cheevos.

Speaking of that, does Fallout / F:New Vegas use the same command to modify your carryweight? Because that's one reason I got frustrated & never finished either.

Might need more testing on what, if anything, disables achievements, but my understanding is that there's a per-game switch that New Vegas uses but Skyrim does not. I do believe New Vegas will tell you that achievements are disabled. But I cannot say for sure, it's been a while.

New Vegas doesn't tell you, but it's not a permanent thing either. It's a per session disabling of achievements. So you use the console, save and quit and restart and you get the console's benefit without "risking" missing any cheevos.

Speaking of that, does Fallout / F:New Vegas use the same command to modify your carryweight? Because that's one reason I got frustrated & never finished either.